


From Heir to Mere Servant, Flora

by bluefirebabe



Series: my rp auditions [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Character Study, Gen, originally an rp audition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 05:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26348128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefirebabe/pseuds/bluefirebabe
Summary: A character study of sorts, focusing on how Flora feels about being abducted to Nohr.(originally an rp audition)
Relationships: none ig?? she's jealous of Felicia and wants her dad to not have a favorite
Series: my rp auditions [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861501
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	From Heir to Mere Servant, Flora

**Author's Note:**

> Flora deserved more supports, earlier join time,,,, so much,,,,,,,,,

_ ”Wonderful job, Felicia!” _

_ ”That’s my girl!” _

_ ”You’d make for a lovely leader, fighting like that!” _

That last one stung especially hard, as if her father had picked up one of the many icicles that hung off of the ledge she was hiding behind and stabbed her equally frozen heart with it. Of course it was always Felicia that got the praise, even though she was—albeit by less than a day—the younger sister.

Flora, the woman who now sat outside of the training grounds crying quietly on her knees, was the heir to the Ice Tribe. The girl was Kilma’s eldest child, and as the child of the ruler, she would someday be the head of the tribe. She had practiced diplomacy accordingly, and, though she was incredibly young now and her father was far from death, she thought she would someday talk to King Garon himself eloquently enough to get his troops away from their land. Her plans for such a revolution were laid out carefully, and yet… 

Yet still her father preferred Felicia to her, all because her strength in battle was less than her twin’s. Her daggers were sharp as, well, daggers; her eyesight during battle was sharp in the sense that it was keen. _Sharp_ , with all its many meanings, was a word to describe nearly everything about her—from her stance to her attire. And sharp was always too dull for Father, at least when she was put next to Felicia.

So she sat on the floor, all of her sereneness gone for a precious few minutes, listening to all of the praise she sought after be given to another. Flora knew her father loved her to some degree, and likely thought her too mature to need the pampering her clumsy counterpart got, yet it did hurt. She sobbed and sobbed, and then she stopped. The two had finished training while she had been caught up in tears, and now there was nothing around for her to cry about at all. What a fool she must’ve looked like… 

Foolish, foolish, foolish. Oh, she had always been so foolish, so naive, so… 

  
  


“Oh, this simply won’t do…” Flora rose from the ground and straightened out her skirts. Now was time to better herself, not to be so forlorn. Though she couldn’t help avoiding her father and sister’s eyes at dinner that night.

\--

Today she dearly wished to have her last memory of her father be a happy one; perhaps she would be able to recall him complimenting her, or even just asking her to pass the butter. It was her own fault that the last (and therefore the clearest) memory she had of him before the Nohrian army took her and Felicia away was of a silent meal. He had been talking happily to Felicia before noticing Flora’s silence, and after a cough the rest of the evening had been silent.

He told them that it was fine to go with the Nohrians, and the twin sisters were taken away. She suspected later that he had not been content with the arrangement at all, but was just going along to protect the rest of the tribe. Regardless, they had been taken to the royal castle and forced to be maids whilst he simply stayed in the tribe. It was not that she was angry he was left behind—It was actually a kindness of sorts that Garon let the Ice Tribe retain their leader—no, she felt an emptiness… a loneliness. 

Her dear sister seemed unaware that the Nohrians had not offered them a job, but had taken them hostage. It was clear enough to Flora that, judging from the way the Nohrians barked at them that they could only take one thing with them and then shoved them into a carriage, this was not at all a cultural exchange. She had elected to bring one of her Father’s daggers, the powerful Hoarfrost knife with her, and stood her ground when they tried to prevent her from taking a weapon. Flora insisted it was simply a table knife and that it would be useful for her maid duties. They relented, and she suspected that was all the lenience she could squeeze out of them. That small amount of lenience was all she would get, she suspected.

Taking both the heir and the spare of the Ice Tribe was terrible of the Nohrians to do. Yes, the Ice Tribe still had their leader, but no one to succeed him. Flora imagined Father was getting older and weaker by now, and it appeared to her that the Nohrian king would take possession of the Ice Tribe once Kilma was gone. It hurt so much to imagine her father passing before she could tell him she loved him, but she needed to be aware of these things. The empire had done it to other countries as well, starting by stripping them of their rights and occupying their land, and then fully forcing them into Nohr. 

It was a hellish country. The Ice Tribe was deathly cold to outsiders, she had heard, and Nohr was insanely hot for her. The castle lacked much ventilation, and the black maid uniform made sure that whatever small amount of light showed in the sky landed right on her, absorbing right into her skin. Flora’s ice magic only did so much to cool her off… She shuddered to think of how badly a place like Hoshido would burn her. Ah, but there was no chance she would end up in the other country. After all, she was forced to stay here in this dictator-esque empire.

Here in what might as well have been the underworld, Flora was forced to do maid’s work for a royal child in the blackened heart of this wretched kingdom. She wasn’t even certain why Corrin was stuck in this one location (as the other Nohrian princes and princesses were free to come and go from the Northern Fortress as they pleased), and thought part of it might be to punish her. This fort was far up in the north of the village, while the Ice Tribe resided in the southernmost parts of Nohr. Even if she had a plan to send a message to her home, perhaps by ignoring the dire consequences of theft and stealing a messenger pigeon, even the strongest birds would die before reaching all the way down there—and there was truly no way she would be able to get the Nohrian seal of approval on a message asking to have another bird finish the journey north. 

  
  


Flora lamented the loss of any contact with her father, thankful as she was to have her sister. Jakob and Corrin weren’t bad company either, she supposed. Truth be told, Jakob was incredibly rude (though she herself was cold as ice sometimes) and Corrin was incredibly naive. The young royal’s hair was always out of place—Flora fixed that frequently enough—although they were a joy to serve most of the time; Felicia was happy with Corrin as their mistress, at least.

The heiress excelled at maid work, unfortunately. Maybe if Father could see her doing laundry perfectly, he would praise her at least a little? Maybe if he saw how poor Felicia was at her job, Flora would finally seem like a good daughter in comparison? _No,_ she thought. _If he was here, he’d just bandage Sister’s cuts and tell us both to pick up the broken plates._ That wasn’t quite true, yet Flora could not afford to be hopeful in any measure in her current situation. She did always help her younger sister where she could. On the battlefield, Flora usually felt like the younger sister herself.

It was brave Felicia who, despite her poor housekeeping, would come to the rescue in the unlikely event that they had to fight. For now, though, they were _easygoing_ maids with no real reason to battle. Flora slept with Hoarfrost under her pillow, yet its hour of need never came. In recent nights, after taking the dagger from its hiding place in her uniform and holding it under her resting head, she could’ve sworn it felt… Different. Warmer, in a sense. It was obviously not melting (Hoarfrost was frozen, but not made of true ice), so Flora could not figure out what was happening. The dagger had not been used in true combat in years; it felt as if it was… preparing to do so again.

She resumed folding the laundry, attempting to do so without creasing it. It was a fruitless effort. In order to fold clothing, one must make some sort of crease in it. Still, Flora tried and tried. Flora was no longer treated as the respected heir to the Ice Tribe—she was a common Nohrian maid now; dispensable, disposable, replaceable. And she could not lose this position and bring harm to her family, or to her tribe. If she was not the perfect maid, the punishment would be severe. It may even extend to the people of her homeland.   
  


And so, she served Corrin and the rest of the royal family _perfectly_. Her loyalty to Garon was endless, or at least that was how most saw it. They did not see her true self. She acted content with her situation, and would do so until the end of her days… Or until they freed her from this commitment, though she doubted that would ever happen. Her happiness was not a priority—it never was. The most important thing was to do her job and protect her tribe.

After all, she was their maid; if she was not their maid, then everyone and everything she loved was doomed. It was a cruel country with cruel rules, and she had to submit to the cruelty relentlessly.

She sighed and continued folding Corrin’s shirts.

“Someday… My life may have more meaning than this. Yet that day is as far away as my tribe’s lands.”

  
  



End file.
